An 80-year-old man, Bonifacio Sixto Carachure, died 10 days after being struck by a white pickup truck while he was crossing the street by Cota and Garden streets.
The incident occurred sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. December 7, as Carachure was walking home from Smart & Final with some chicken he’d just purchased. His home was a block away. Relatives say he was walking in a designated crosswalk at the time he was struck. The driver pulled over upon feeling the impact; perhaps he didn’t see Carachure, said to be strong and vigorous, who was five feet tall.
Carachure was hospitalized with multiple broken bones, damage to internal organs, and internal bleeding. Nine days after being struck, he suffered a heart attack. By that time, he was also fighting an aggressive form of pneumonia in both lungs. He died the following day.
Carachure was born in Guerrero, Mexico, where he worked as a construction worker and gardener. He moved to Santa Barbara in the early 1980s and became a United States citizen in 1986. According to a GoFundMe page created on his family’s behalf, when Carachure first moved to Santa Barbara, he shared a two-bedroom apartment on the Westside with 20 people who slept in rows in the living room and had to stand in line to use the one bathroom. He saved enough working as a gardener in Montecito to bring his wife and seven of his nine children, then living in Mexico.
He is survived by his wife, Sinforosa, nine children, 29 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
As of deadline, it remains uncertain what legal consequences, if any, the driver of the pick-up truck may face.